AkvaDesign appeals, wins development concessions

Enclosed pen design secures two development permits.

It was a roundabout way to arrive at a development permit: AkvaDesign’s 2015 application for 10 licenses was rejected by the Fisheries Directorate in 2016 and then appealed to the Fisheries Ministry who sent it back to the Directorate altered as a two-license project.

After getting permission to go with just one production concession, AkvaDesign appealed again to have its enclosed-farm project approved as a two-concession development, writes newspaper Bronnoysund Avis. Word of its acceptance was hand-delivered by two party members from Norway’s governing coalition.

“You have been patient,” Progress Party fisheries spokesman, Kjell-Boerge Freiberg told AkvaDesign employees. He then told them the good news: the Fisheries Minister himself had approved their application for two, not one, development concessions.

AkvaDesign chairman, Brynjar Forberskog, called Thursday a day of joy.

“That we now have these development concessions gives us a much better platform and long-term horizons,” Forberskog said.